1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an electronic whiteboard system, a search result display method of the electronic whiteboard, and a search result display program of the electronic whiteboard.
2. Background Art
Recently, electronic whiteboards such as electronic blackboards and electronic whiteboard functions of Web conferences have increasingly come into wide use. In an electronic whiteboard, objects such as text, figures, and images can be drawn in a virtual canvas, and they can be shared among a plurality of users. Further, since an area in an electronic whiteboard can be expanded, a number of information items can be arranged in one area. However, when the size of the electronic whiteboard becomes larger and a number of information items (objects) are arranged in one area, it is very difficult to grasp the overall information (objects) and the structure of the electronic whiteboard. In such a case, information (objects) can be easily summarized by dividing the electronic whiteboard into a plurality of areas. In view of this, various methods for dividing an electronic whiteboard into a plurality of areas have been proposed.
On the other hand, a system handling the electronic whiteboards has a function that searches for a desired part in an existing electronic whiteboard. In such a system, a user can specify one or a plurality of conditions from various search conditions including a string, a corresponding object type, a created date and time, a last modified date and time, a creator, a last modified person, an electronic whiteboard name, and tag information to search for the electronic whiteboard. For example, electronic whiteboard(s) can be searched for in order to display a list of Action Items (hereinafter abbreviated as “AIs”) that have been determined for each conference held in the past six months from electronic whiteboards registered in the electronic whiteboard system and to confirm or update a status of each “AI”.
One conventional method for displaying search results uses a string specified by a user and displays a “title of an electronic whiteboard” and “a part hit in the search+characters before and after the hit” as a search result. Further, various information items associated with the electronic whiteboard such as the “last modified date and time”, the “last modified person”, and the “electronic whiteboard creator” may be displayed together with the above information. The search result includes a link to the electronic whiteboard, and when the user clicks the link, the user can access the corresponding electronic whiteboard to view or edit the electronic whiteboard.
However, in the case of the above conventional method for displaying the search results, as display contents of the search results are local, when the user views the search result screen, the user cannot directly imagine how a desired electronic whiteboard is drawn on the screen, and the user needs to click the link of the search result and open the electronic whiteboard so that it will be displayed on the screen in order to view or edit surroundings of a corresponding object. When the electronic whiteboard that has been opened and displayed on the screen is not a desired result, it is necessary for the user to repeat an operation to return to the search result screen, click a link of another search result and check as to whether it is a subject electronic whiteboard until the subject electronic whiteboard is displayed. This requires time and effort of the user to obtain the desired result, and thus it is difficult to find the desired electronic whiteboard.
In order to solve such a problem in the conventional method for displaying the search results, “Search result display apparatus, method, and program” disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2008-102613 describes a technique that manages electronic whiteboards as pages conceptually, and when a plurality of electronic whiteboards are searched for, the plurality of electronic whiteboards that have been searched for are directly displayed on a search result screen.
As described above, even when the plurality of electronic whiteboards are searched for, the technique disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2008-102613 can directly display the plurality of electronic whiteboards that have been searched for on the search result screen.
However, although conventional techniques including the technique disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2008-102613 are provided with a technique related to division of an electronic whiteboard into areas, they are not provided with a technique for composing one electronic whiteboard by a plurality of different areas of the electronic whiteboard as the search result screen that displays the search results. Moreover, the conventional techniques including Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2008-102613 are not able to solve the problem in which the electronic whiteboard cannot be edited on the search result screen.
In general, a desired function is that, in regard to the display contents of the search results of the plurality of electronic whiteboards, direct images of the search results are displayed on the electronic whiteboard, information of the search results and information of surroundings of the search results can be viewed on the search result screen, and objects can be edited on the search result screen. It is desirable that direct images of information of a searched part in an original electronic whiteboard which has been searched for including information of surroundings of the searched part are displayed as they are displayed on the electronic whiteboard on the search result screen for displaying the search results. A desired function is that a user can directly view the information related to the searched part and the information related to the surroundings of the searched part on the search result screen, and the user can edit an object of a part where it is necessary to be edited on the search result screen.